Bipolar disorder and family communication: effects of a psychoeducational treatment program

Family psychoeducational programs are efficacious adjuncts to pharmacotherapy for patients with schizophrenic and bipolar disorders, but little is known about what these programs change about families. The authors assessed changes in face-to-face interactional behavior over 1 year among families of bipolar patients who received a 9-month family-focused psychoeducational therapy (FFT; n = 22) or crisis management with naturalistic follow-up (CMNF; n = 22), both administered with maintenance pharmacotherapy. Members of families who received FFT showed more positive nonverbal interactional behavior during a 1-year posttreatment problem-solving assessment than families who received CMNF, although no corresponding decreases were seen in negative interactional behaviors. The positive effect of family treatment on patients' symptom trajectories over 1 year was partially mediated by increases in patients' positive nonverbal interactional behaviors during this same interval.     

The role of parents' self-esteem, mastery-orientation and social background in their parenting styles

In order to examine the extent to which parents' levels of education, financial resources, self-esteem, and their mastery-orientation versus task-avoidance are associated with their parenting styles and parental stress, data from two studies were analyzed. In Study I, parents of 105 6 to 7-year old children were asked to fill in scales measuring their parenting styles and parental stress, mastery-orientation, financial resources, and their level of education. In Study II, 235 parents were asked to fill in the same scales. An identical pattern of results was found in the two studies. Parents' self-esteem and their use of mastery-oriented strategy were found to be associated with authoritative parenting and low parental stress, whereas parents' low level of education was related to an authoritarian parenting style. The results further showed that the impact of parents' self-esteem on authoritative parenting and parental stress was partly mediated by their use of a mastery-oriented strategy.     

The influence of structure from motion on motion correspondence

The visual system has a remarkable ability to reconstruct 3-D structure from moving 2-D features. The processing of structure from motion is generally thought to consist of two stages. First, the direction and speed of features is measured (2-D velocity measurement) and, second, 3-D structure is reconstructed from the measured 2-D velocities (3-D structure recovery). Most models have assumed that these stages occur in a bottom-up fashion. Here, however, we present evidence that the 3-D structure-recovery stage influences the 2-D velocity-measurement stage. We developed a stimulus in which two perceptual modes of motion correspondence (one-way translation versus oscillation), and two perceptual modes of 3-D surface structure (flat surface versus cylinder) could be achieved. We found that the likelihood of perceiving both one-way motion and cylindrical structure increased in similar ways with increasing frame duration. In subsequent experiments we found, first, that a higher likelihood of perceiving one-way motion did not affect the likelihood of perceiving cylindrical structure; and, second, that a higher likelihood of perceiving cylindrical structure increased the likelihood of perceiving one-way motion. These results suggest that the higher, 3-D structure-recovery stage may influence the lower, 2-D motion-correspondence stage. This result is not in accordance with most computational models that assume that there is only one-way, feedforward information processing from the 2-D velocity (energy)-measurement stage to the 3-D structure-recovery stage. Perhaps, one of the roles of feedback processing is to seek consensus of the information processed in different stages.     

Change of spatial field effects in 16- to 20-week-old infants

Infants from 16 to 20 weeks were presented with objects moving across a 60-cm distance. Tracking increased between 16 and 18 weeks, reaching increased at 18 weeks, and arm lifts (swipes) showed no age change. A right spatial field bias in tracking disappeared gradually. Swipes occurred most often in front of the object, when it was moving in the center field, presumably as reactions due to spatial proximity. Reaching occurred in the peripheral spatial fields in the younger infants, but in the older infants most often in the center spatial field. Moreover, reaching occurred generally more often toward the left spatial field and predicted the emergence of tracking the left spatial field. Thus, it appeared that a bias in reaching corrected a bias in tracking. Similar effects of limb movements, especially when reaching, were found in the successful treatment of visual neglect patients in neuropsychological research.     

Towers of Hanoi and London: contribution of working memory and inhibition to performance

The Tower of Hanoi and Tower of London have become well-established executive function tasks that presumably tap cognitive skills mediated by the frontal cortex. It has been assumed that the two tower tasks are more or less interchangeable and that both measure working memory and inhibition processes. These assumptions were tested in a study involving 37 normal college volunteers (M age = 20 years). Participants were administered the Tower of Hanoi (TOH), Tower of London-Revised (TOL-R), two working memory tests, and two tests of inhibition. The two tower tasks correlated significantly (r = .39), but only moderately. The working memory and inhibition variables explained over one-half of the variance in TOL-R performance; however, there was a relatively weaker contribution of inhibition to TOH performance.     

Improving staff nutritional practices in community-based group homes: evaluation, training, and management.

We evaluated the effectiveness of a staff training and management package on nutritional practices in two community-based group homes serving adults with developmental disabilities. Food storage, menu development, and meal preparation were trained in a multiple baseline format, followed by supervisor feedback. All staff behaviors increased after training and were maintained for up to 1 year. Biological indices reflected collateral improvements in the health of consumers, and surveys of staff and parents established social validity.     

Part 1 behavioral science scores: after a summer psychiatric research clerkship: failure to replicate.

The present study did not replicate Holmes,' et al.'s (1987) findings that medical students who participated in a summer psychiatric research clerkship scored statistically significantly higher than matched controls on the Behavioral Science portion of the National Board of Medical Examiners' Part I Exam. Group ns in this replication were 39 each.     

Effects of practice and task constraints on stiffness and friction functions in biological movements

A dynamical model of the movements of the platform of a ski-simulator was derived from experimental data, using the graphical and statistical methods developed by Beek and Beek (Beek, P. J., & Beek, W. J. (1988). Human Movement Science, 7, 301–342). The data were collected in an experiment in which both amplitude and practice were manipulated. The data were filtered and further reduced to normalised cycles that were averaged within and across subjects. Graphical methods were applied to these averaged normalised cycles to determine the stiffness and friction terms to be included in the model. The relative contribution of each term was assessed by means of multiple regression. The model, which included cubic and quintic Duffing terms and one or two dissipative Van der Pol terms, accounted on average for 99.2% of the variance. The exact parameter setting of the model differed considerably across subjects. For one subject, a qualitatively different model, including Rayleigh instead of Van der Pol terms, provided a better account of the data. Systematic changes of the coefficients in the model, related to amplitude and the duration of practice, were evident.     

The clinical utility of the MMPI-2 Antisocial Practices Content Scale

This study explored the ability of the MMPI-2 Antisocial Practices Content Scale (ASP) to correctly classify DSM-IV Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD). ASP scores and scores on the MMPI-2 Psychopathic Deviate (Pd) scale were compared in an APD group (n = 10), a Borderline Personality Disorder group (n = 16), a Narcissistic Personality Disorder group (n = 9), an Other Personality Disorder group (representing personality disorders from Clusters A and C; n = 14), and a nonclinical population (NC; n = 67). The ASP exhibited an ability to differentiate APD from other personality disorders and was significantly correlated to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for APD while the Pd was not. Diagnostic efficiency statistics (sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive power, negative predictive power, overall correct classification rate, and kappa) were calculated under four different conditions in a clinically relevant manner (Kessel & Zimmerman, 1993. Psychological Assessment, 53, 395-399). The results of this study illustrate the usefulness of the ASP as a tool for the assessment of antisocial attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in individuals suspected of having APD. This information may be valuable to clinicians who are planning treatment or assessing treatment outcome for clients with APD.     

Age differences in saccadic averaging

Younger and older adults were asked to saccade to an orientation-defined target that was presented alone, with a more central distractor, or with a more peripheral distractor. Both age groups exhibited saccadic averaging that was more pronounced in the central distractor condition, wherein older adults had the larger effect. These results are relevant to questions of oculomotor control and also have implications for the study of age differences in other visually guided behaviors.